The 700bhp Radford 62-2 Pikes Peak car finished first in its class

“We’re going to be in an exhibition class which will have a lot of quick cars in it,” Tanner Foust told TopGear.com ahead of the 2023 Pikes Peak hillclimb. “We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

‘Work’, consider yourself very much sliced, diced, processed and sent. For Mr Foust – driving what looks like the result of a Faustian deal – has managed to finish first in that Exhibition class with a time of 9m 37.326s.

To give some context, the second fastest time in the Exhibition class was a 9m 54.901s recorded by Randy Pobst in a 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid, while third place went to former PP winner Rhys Millen with a time of 10m 12.024s in a BMW M8. The outright fastest time of all this year? Robin Shute's 8m 40.080s running a Wolf TSC-FS in the Unlimited class.

The annual ‘race to the clouds’ took place last Sunday, with Foust cracking a personal best, too: he’s never gone sub-ten-minutes up Pikes Peak, until now.

“We knew the car was special after the first test sessions, and I am incredibly pleased we were able to transfer that performance into race day results,” he said after the run. ‘Special’ is certainly one way of describing a car with a Very Supercharged 3.5-litre V6, 700bhp and aerodynamic addenda pinched from a battle-ready Optimus Prime.

Plus, the whole thing weighs just 861kg – eight hundred and sixty one! – meaning it’ll shift. Like, 0-60mph in 2.2s shift.

“Pikes Peak is the quintessential American hill climb, so it made perfect sense for Radford to create a bespoke one-off model for the occasion,” said Radford boss and co-founder Ant Anstead.

There’ll be another occasion to see the wild PP car – it’ll be at this weekend’s NASCAR Chicago Street Race.